​The highlight of “on the fence,” Brandon Lacow’s MFA Thesis exhibition, is the replica of Dorothy Gale’s house from MGM’s Wizard of Oz (1939). It is an entry point for the artist to question the meaning of home, and if home is comfortable or a constricting space during a transition to adulthood. It is the artist making a statement exploring domesticity and discovery, and how personal realities are questioned. The craftsmanship of the house sitting on the ground floor of The Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery is as detailed as Lacow’s work as a photographer. The house as a sculpture has even captured the imaginations of UNLV facility workers. When I was there three workers drove up in carts to admire the installation. I secretly thought they were the UNLV version of Hunk, Hickory and Zeke. For those not prepared for Wizard of Oz trivia, those three characters were later seen in the film as the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion.

​Cinema graphics is a playground for YKMF, aka You Killed Me First, the Las Vegas-based street artist who masterly mimics the poster style that ruled before Photoshop drove movie Key Art. In this piece, presumably titled “The Man with the Golden Paste,” legend graphic designer Saul Bass is channeled in this wheat-paste homage to simple geometric form. The arm holding the tool of visual deconstruction adds charm to the selling of the target product; the street art process of water, flour, boil, and paste. It’s an addictive method of art, almost as bad what a junkie in an 1955 Otto Preminger film feels.

A post shared by There She Is (@theresheisart) on Jan 29, 2018 at 9:22pm PST

Tinker Bell will bleed bling when struck down. That is the take-away in this new piece by ThereSheIsArt. The Disnified version of J. M. Barrie's fairy diva is face down, laying in pool of her own glitter in an Arts District gutter. The details in the colors feel worn and stressed, accented by the wisp of light blue, and the gold against the hard concrete is striking. The iconic figure is in need of quick help (or maybe it is too late). I choose this to be a metaphor of how the witty and smart street art of Las Vegas has been on a low ebb, or abandoned. This brings it back, for a moment, if you clap your hands. ​